Set-up studio-workshop

Set-up studio-workshop

I receive individual participants for a 1,5 hour private studio-workshop “Engaging Encounters: Sketching the Future of TEI”. This studio-workshop will run maximally 6 times during Thursday and Friday, January 15 and 16, making use of the mobile design and sensemaking studio (D&S studio) [1]. The studio-workshop will go through four phases: getting acquainted, setting the stage, sketching the future of TEI, and wrapping up.

00:00-00:10 Getting acquainted: In order to get engaged and work at an empathic level as quickly as possible, every encounter starts with a brief introduction session using Engagement Catalysers [2], to explore and visualise which values drives us in our work and life.

00:10-00:20 Setting the stage: We will start by placing three items on the stage that we have selected before the studio-workshop, based on the theme “sketching the future of TEI” and on each other’s experience, background and interest (which will be exchanged before the start of the studio-workshop). We will briefly explain to each other what we have brought and why.

00:20-01:20 Sketching the future of TEI: Thereupon we have one hour to explore, discuss and sketch the future of TEI, as vivid and tangible as possible, using all the materials and tools offered and brought along. We can also go out to collect materials or try out each other’s work, demos, techniques, tools etc. As the TEI- community is based a various paradigms, this encounter scrutinises differences in our underlying paradigms; do we use for example a phenomenology- inspired design way of tangible, embedded and embodied interaction, an artistic approach towards TEI, or what we loosely call a Cartesian computer science and engineering-based way towards TEI. Since a multiplicity of perspectives is highly desirable for a healthy and mature TEI community, we will explore during the encounter how the different paradigms meet, how we can learn from each other, and how we can bring the field forward. Moreover, we will explore during this encounter how TEI might influence the interaction with the world in the next decade, and what we see beyond that decade. The encounter makes use of the mobile D&S studio, which was especially designed for this project based on the concept of embodied sensemaking [1].

01:20-01:30 Wrapping up: We finalise the encounter, by concluding and summarizing the finding of the session. The overall result will be documented in a blog, and be a part of a book and a movie about the entire project Engaging Encounters: Sketching the Future together. Through all the encounters and ‘publications’, this project aims at inspiring people in their work and perspective on the world, including TEI, and their contribution in shaping the future together. Moreover, the project aims at helping to bridge the communication gaps between the 3 different worlds of research, politics, commerce and living, and the different world within research, e.g. design, art, engineering and social science.

A few weeks after every encounter at TEI’15: Every participant can receive his or her own trace of the whole session, existing of 1) a few photos of the overall setting/trace, 2) a small luxury box with cards that are related to every scaffold used during the encounter and a booklet showing the overall results of the TEI studio-workshop, and 3) an URL to the digital database of that specific encounter, including the audio recording with the time- stamps. This way every participant gets scaffolds that they can use again to show and discuss their envisioned future with their colleagues and friends. There will be cost to receive these physical traces.

Recent Posts

Continuing this project next to my regular work (since my sabbatical ended almost a year ago) is quite a challenge, and especially updating the website. Since the summer holidays started, I now have a bit more time to address my adventures the last half year. In 2016, I had 12 encounters up till now. in 2016.

At the top row, you see three encounters I had with designers in practice (from left to right: Afdeling Buitengewone Zaken, Less or More and Onmi) about their approaches and visions on design and design research. Moreover, I had the opportunity to have five inspiring encounters with researchers who were visiting the Computer Human Interaction conference in San Jose, CA, USA (from the 2nd row on the left to the right and downwards: George Khut, Dag Svaenas, Gerrit van der Veer, John Zimmerman and Marko Teras) about the direction HCI and design research is taking, and how this relates to social, cultural, philosophical, technological and economical developments in our society. Moreover, Pierre Lévy and I had the pleasure to have an encounter with Veronique Hillen, Dean of Paris d.school, on design thinking and design education (3rd row on the right). I met Gbolagade Ayoola, professor emeritus of Agricultural Economics and Policy and founder and president of Farm & Infrastructure Foundation, in Eindhoven and we discussed amongst other things the differences between Nigeria and Europe e.g. regarding the role of policy and technology to offer people equal rights. In August, I had a meeting with Maarten Konigs & Hans Robertus from the Holland Branding Group (4th row in the middle) to discuss participatory processes to explore the identity and branding of groups and neighbourhoods to offer people a frame and source of inspiration to act upon. Finally, I explored with Roel Freeke, the director of Necker van Naem, about the role of data, tools and social interaction to support governance and democracy processes. So the counter has reached 79.